Ferozuddin Feroz
Ariana: On February 4th, 2020, the first special care center to fight coronavirus was established in Afghan-Japan Communicable Disease Hospital in Kabul. Public Health Minister Ferozuddin Feroz says that the center offers 100 beds, and is dedicated to diagnose and cure coronavirus patients. The minister adds that if need be, they will establish such centers, with a capacity of 150 beds, in other provinces too. Click here to read more (external link).
1TV: Speaking at a Heritage Foundation event this week, Jack Keane, a former vice chief of staff of the US Army, said that Pakistan’s intelligence service and its army have been supporting the Taliban. He said that Pakistan was harboring the Taliban at Miramshah and Quetta and it supported two fertilizer factories where 85 percent of all IEDs made inside Afghanistan to kill Afghans and Americans come from. Keane also said that he was not optimistic about the potential for a peace settlement in Afghanistan. Click here to read more (external link).
RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan
February 4, 2020
KABUL — Dozens of Afghan media outlets have joined their voices to denounce the “deterioration” of access to government-related information in the country.
In a joint statement issued on February 4, 30 media outlets including privately owned national TV channels, local broadcasters, and newspapers blamed the “carelessness” of the government for endangering media freedom in recent years.
The protest was supported by media-freedom watchdogs, the UN mission in Afghanistan, and Western embassies in Kabul, which said access to information for citizens will make Afghan democracy stronger.
In their joint statement, the 30 media outlets said that all government institutions had “shortcomings” when it comes to providing access to information, but cited the Supreme Court, the Attorney General’s Office, the National Directorate of Security, the president’s office, the Finance Ministry, the central bank, and the Defense Ministry as being “the worst ones.”
It urged the Afghan government and the international community to “act in the strongest possible ways to safeguard the free flow of information, our press freedom, and our young democracy.
Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah responded by calling on “all the government organizations to cooperate and share information with the citizens.”
Abdullah said that “freedom of speech and freedom of media is one of the most important national achievements of the people of Afghanistan,” adding that “honoring and respecting this achievement is the responsibility of government officials.”
In a statement, Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said it supported the protest by the 30 media outlets and criticized the Afghan authorities’ “failure” to fully implement the law on access to state-held information.
The European Union office in Afghanistan also called for the law to be “implemented in full,” saying the “free flow of information is crucial for any democracy &progressive society.”
The Afghan government “needs to respond to calls of media and fully implement” the law, according to Britain’s embassy in Kabul.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said that “open and healthy societies promote access to information for citizens,” which it said was “vital” for accountability and fighting corruption, improving government performance and efficiency,
encouraging investment, and empowering citizens in public life.
Ross Wilson, charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy, said the authorities “must work with the press to make Afghan democracy stronger.”
The German ambassador in Kabul, Peter Prugel, said the Afghan government “must assure free & indiscriminate access to information.” “FreeMedia, #pressfreedom & #access2information are key to #accountability & #GoodGovernance and an open, transparent & democratic society in #Afghanistan,” he tweeted.
The French Embassy said it “stands by Afghan journalists, who demonstrate on a daily basis courage, professionnalism (sic) and commitment to the information of [the Afghan] people and the world, often in difficult circumstances.”
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Mike Pompeo
Press TV
February 3, 2020
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has demanded “demonstrable evidence” from the Taliban that they have the capacity to reduce violence before signing a deal to end America’s longest war, even though official military figures show that in the last quarter of 2019 the US dropped a record number of bombs in the country since 2013.
Pompeo said on Monday that a deal is close but that the US and Taliban have been close before and failed because the militant group was unable to demonstrate that they were committed to reducing violence, The Associated Press reported.
“We’re working on a peace and reconciliation plan, putting the commas in the right place, getting the sentences right,” he said while speaking at a news conference in Afghanistan’s neighbor, Uzbekistan. “We got close once before to having an agreement: a piece of paper that we mutually executed and the Taliban were unable to demonstrate either their will or capacity or both to deliver on a reduction in violence.”
“So, what we are demanding now is demonstrable evidence of their will and capacity to reduce violence, to take down the threat, so the inter-Afghan talks … will have a less violent context,” he said. “We’re hopeful we can achieve that but we’re not there yet, and work certainly remains.”
US special representative for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad told Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul last week there has been “no notable progress” in talks with the Taliban in ending the nearly 19-year war.
Last week, a US military plane crashed in eastern Afghanistan, in Ghazni province, an area with a strong Taliban presence. The Taliban claimed responsibility for downing the aircraft.
“A special aircraft of the American occupant was flying in the area, for the purpose of an intelligence mission in the Sado Khail region of Deh Yak district of Ghazni province,” said Afghan Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. “Our mujahideen have taken down (the aircraft) tactically.”
He added that all crew members and passengers, including several senior CIA officers, were killed, Mujahid added, and the wreckage and bodies remain at the crash site. The US later on recovered the remains of individuals died in the crash.
Meanwhile, a US government watchdog has announced a surge in violent attacks in its war in Afghanistan, saying they climbed to record levels in the last quarter of 2019.
“Enemy-initiated attacks” rose sharply last year, with the fourth quarter seeing a total of 8,204 attacks — up from 6,974 in the same period in 2018, said the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) in a Friday statement.
Attacks dropped earlier in the year but picked up again after US President Donald Trump called off talks with the Taliban near Washington after an American officer was killed in Afghanistan.
The Taliban and the US had been negotiating the deal for a year, and were on the brink of an announcement in September 2019 when President Trump abruptly declared the process “dead”.
Talks were later restarted between the two sides in December in Qatar, but were suspended again following an attack near the Bagram military base in Afghanistan, which is run by the US.
Washington has for weeks been calling on the militants to reduce attacks on US forces, posing it as a condition for resuming formal negotiations on an agreement that would see US troops begin to leave the country after a near two-decade war.
The United States — under Republican George W. Bush’s presidency — and its allies invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror. The offensive removed the Taliban regime from power, but after all these years the foreign troops are still deployed to the country.
After becoming the president in 2008, President Barack Obama, a Democrat, vowed to end the Afghan war — one of the longest conflicts in US history – but he failed to keep his promise.
Trump, who has spoken against the Afghan war, has dubbed the 2001 invasion and following occupation of Afghanistan as “Obama’s war”.
But Trump has also announced to deploy thousands of more troops to the war-torn country, signaling a policy shift.
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Amrullah Saleh
Tolo News: Presidential Palace pictures of President Ghani’s meetings show his running mate Amrullah Saleh sitting next to him, which adds fuel to speculation among critics of the Ghani administration that Saleh is performing government duties unofficially. Saleh, who is running as Ghani’s first vice president, has also been referred to as a high-ranking official in Presidential Palace statements. Click here to read more (external link).
Other Political News
Frud Bezhan
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
February 3, 2020
Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) says it is investigating video footage that shows an Afghan woman being stoned to death.
The two-minute clip shows a group of men throwing rocks at a covered woman who is lying in a hole that has been dug in the ground. A crowd of onlookers can be heard shouting “Hit her!” and “Allahu Akbar!”
The woman’s cries and screams can be heard.
The AIHRC told RFE/RL that it is trying to discover exactly when and where the video was shot, and why the woman was killed.
The Taliban claims the footage is from the same October 2015 stoning that RFE/RL previously obtained footage of — a case in which a 19-year-old woman in the central province of Ghor was killed for alleged adultery.
The Taliban also said the stoning had been carried out by a pro-government militia commander.
But local officials blamed Taliban militants for the 2015 execution. The victim, identified as Rokhshana, had been accused of having premarital sex with her fiance. The incident took place in the village of Ghalmin on the outskirts of Firoz Koh, the provincial capital.
But Afghan journalists and activists say the new footage, which was first uploaded on social media on January 30, documents a more recent stoning in the Taywara district of Ghor Province.
Ghor, a mountainous and remote province in Afghanistan’s central highlands, is one of the most impoverished and unstable areas of the country. The provincial government’s power extends little beyond Firoz Koh.
The Taliban and dozens of illegal, armed groups run by former warlords and militia leaders are active in Ghor — a key transit route for shipments through Afghanistan of weapons and opium.
‘Atrocious Acts’
The new footage prompted outrage from Afghan social-media users. Many have blamed the Taliban.
The Taliban is locked in peace negotiations with the United States and has held talks with Afghan politicians about a political solution to end Afghanistan’s 18-year-old war.
The peace talks have provoked controversy among some Afghans who view the Taliban as terrorists who should not be negotiated with.
“I am utterly shocked and saddened after I watched a video on Twitter in which a group of Taliban is stoning an innocent woman,” Sediq Sediqqi, the spokesman for President Ashraf Ghani, wrote on Twitter on February 1. “Taliban’s cruelty and atrocity under the name of Islam is a crime against humanity.”
In response, the Taliban said on Twitter that the punishment of stoning for adultery is an “Islamic ruling that cannot be rejected by any Muslim.”
But the Taliban said it was not involved. It claimed the recently uploaded video showed a stoning carried out in 2015 by Sa’eedi Yar, the commander of a pro-government militia.
The Taliban’s claim failed to quell a flood of condemnation directed at the militant group.
“The Taliban stoned this woman a few days ago in Ghor Province,” Laila Haidari, an Afghan activist, posted on Twitter on February 1. “But where in the world does a group claiming to build a state commit such atrocious acts?”
“A testament that the Taliban, their fragile masculinity, barbarism & inhumane ideology, has not changed,” Afghan rights activist Farangies Shah tweeted on February 1. “Yet the US continues to flirt with the idea of negotiating power with them — under the guise of peace.”
“Cultural poverty and extremism are worse than the catastrophe of explosions and suicide attacks,” Afghan women’s rights activist Fatima Khan tweeted on January 31.
Capital Punishment
While it is unclear why the woman in the video was punished, unmarried girls in Afghanistan are often restricted to their homes and banned from having contact with men outside of their immediate families.
Brutal punishments often await Afghan women and girls who break social norms.
Death by stoning for convicted adulterers is banned under Afghan law, although offenders face long prison terms for adultery. The penal code, originating in 1976, makes no provision for the use of stoning.
Afghanistan’s constitution prescribes that “no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam” and sometimes appears at odds with more liberal and democratic elements within it.
Capital punishment was widely practiced by the Taliban regime that ruled much of the country from 1996-2001, when convicted adulterers were routinely shot or stoned in executions conducted in front of large crowds.
In rural areas, where Taliban militants exert considerable influence, some Afghans still turn to Taliban tribunals to settle disputes because many view government bodies as corrupt or unreliable.
The Taliban employs strict interpretations of Shari’a law, which prescribes punishments such as stoning and executions.
In many Taliban-controlled areas, men or women found guilty of having a relationship outside of marriage or an extramarital affair are either sentenced to death or publicly flogged.
Afghan officials often blame the Taliban for such punishments.
Tolo News: Farzad Mansoori and Mohsen Rezaee, Afghan Taekwondo competitors, both won silver medals in the Fujairah Open International Taekwondo Championship G2 in the UAE after each beat four opponents. Mansoori and Rezaee competed in the 68 kg and 58 kg weight classes, respectively, according to the National Olympic Committee. Click here to read more (external link).
Other Sports News
Michael Hughes: It may seem enigmatic that during the same period the U.S. government and Taliban made unprecedented progress towards a peace agreement they unleashed unprecedented levels of violence. This is not a mysterious paradox, however, but a direct – and predictable – result of the so-called “fighting and talking” strategy that both sides have embraced.
On January 31, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) in its quarterly report said enemy-initiated attacks in Afghanistan hit a record level in the fourth quarter of 2019 in the same period U.S. and Taliban officials restarted peace talks.
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A ship at Chabahar Port (file photo, Press TV)
Press TV
February 2, 2020
India’s finance ministry has announced that budget earmarked for the country’s development work at an Iranian ocean port would double in 2020-2021 to reach nearly $14 million.
Reports in the Indian media on Sunday suggested that the budget announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman a day earlier had allocated Rs100 crore (one billion rupees) to the country’s foreign ministry for the purpose of development of Chabahar port in southeastern Iran.
The fund is more than double the amount allocated in the 2019-2020 budget which was Rs45 crore or $6.3 million, said the reports, adding that the increase in the funds had been facilitated by a recent agreement between India and the US, the country which maintains a harsh regime of sanctions against Iran.
India seeks to develop Chabahar, located on the Sea of Oman, to have an alternative trade route to the landlocked Afghanistan and further to the Central Asia region via bypassing its rival and neighbor Pakistan.
The development work, first agreed with Iran in 2003, has stumbled in recent years mainly because of American sanctions on Iran that make it difficult for Indian companies to engage in projects in Chabahar.
However, a meeting between Indian and US authorities in Washington in December ensured that India could get fresh exemptions for work in Chabahar.
Indian media reports suggested that US Department of Treasury had issued a confirmation of the special exemption from Iran sanctions for India mainly on conditions that Iran’s elite military force the IRGC would not be involved in the operations at Chabahar.
The reports said that doubling the amount of annual budget for India’s work at Chabahar would prove to Iran and Afghanistan that New Delhi is determined to develop the port despite reports over the past year suggesting that the Indians were no longer interested in the project because of the increasing American pressure.